As this Christmas season ends I reflect on how I love some of the oldest hymns. In particular In Dulci Jubilo, which dates back to around 1300, probably written by Heinrich Seusa, although he claimed to have received it in an angelic visitation We’ve been singing this hymn for 700 years (the angels, maybe longer). Today we sing it with the lyrics, Good Christian Friends Rejoice.

This was an old hymn, probably originally written in Latin, and then sung in German with some Latin words left hand, much like we sing Angels We Have Heard On High in English, with the Gloria in Excelsis Deo in Latin.

Here’s the German with the Latin woven in:

In dulci jubilo, nun singet und seid froh!
Unsers Herzens Wonne leit in præsepio
und leuchtet als die Sonne matris in gremio.
Alpha es et O.

In dulci jubilo,
nun singet und seid froh!
Unsers Herzens Wonne
leit in præsepio
und leuchtet als die Sonne
matris in gremio.
Alpha es et O.

https://www.german-way.com/history-and-culture/german-language/german-christmas-carols/in-dulci-jubilo/

A rough translation might be:

In sweet jubilation,
now sing and be joyous!
Our heart’s bliss
rests in a manger
and shines like the sun
in his mother’s lap.
You are the alpha and omega

This is an image of the manuscript in a 1533 Geistliche Leider from Wittenberg.

Martin Luther (1483-1546) loved this hymn, and even wrote a stanza that became quite popular.

Box said it as a chorale in 1683 (BWV 368). Click the link in the previous sentence, and future links below to get a sense of how Bach treated this popular hymn.

In 1713, Bach wrote a chorale prelude (in double canon) for organ on the tune (BWV 608). It is in his Orgelbuchlein. Here is 608 in Bach’s own handwriting:

Bach wrote another chorale prelude on the theme, somewhere around 1730 (BWV 729).

In a curiosity of history, the collection of 82 corral prelude was found at Yale in the 1980s. Some of these are strongly believed to be written by J. S. Bach. None of them, BWV 751, is another arrangement of In Dulci Jubilo. Some believe it may have been written by J. M. Bach, a cousin of J. S. Bach.

Here is the sweet Kings College choir singing it in 2020: https://youtu.be/Xoc-TbVxXBc?si=j7mUfI36-qbgunzo.

My favorite stanza in Good Christian Friends Rejoice would have to be these words:

Now ye need not fear the grave:
Jesus Christ was born to save!
Calls you one, and calls you all,
To gain His everlasting hall…

Finally, I leave you with a contemporary congregational singing of the hymn.